The Tax Preparation Blog

Archive for October, 2007

2009: Year In Review

Happy New Year! With 2009 at an end, the Crawford County Avalanche presents its annual Year In Review. The Year In Review includes article summaries from stories featured in 2009 Crawford County Avalanche editions.

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Question: service tax on builder plz give me details for f.y 2009-2010 & 2008-09?

Please send me the Service Tax Rate chart for the finanical year 2009-10 & 2008-09 to enable me to charge the correct rate of percentage.

Answer: For FY 2008-09 Service Tax Rate was 12% on which Education Cess was 2% and Secondary and Higher Education Cess was 1% (So Effective Rate was 12.36%). this rate was upto 24th February 2009. From 25th service tax rate became 10% and effective rate 10.30%.
However, it also depends whether you are covered under which service category. If you are registered under works contract service then different rate will be applicable. So it depends you are registered under which service category.

2009 Year in Review

As 2009 draws to a close, it is time to look back some of the most important events of the last year. Electronic Growth. The futures industry continues to shift away from “open outcry trading” or “pit trading” to the faster and more efficient “electronic trading” or “screen trading.”

Summer chart series: How foreign owned companies are much more profitable than locally owned firms

Question: Should Bill Clinton have implemented an economic stimulus package before he left office?

Looking at stock charts, it appears the economy started sliding about 18 months before Bush took office in 2001. Now it seems we have a similar situation in 2008. What say you?

Tax rebates could boost economy quickly

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080118/ap_on_bi_ge/stimulus_impact_analysis

I urge you to look at the markets from mid 1999 to 2001. There was indeed a downturn.
The recession during Bush’s term started during March 2001. He was in office less than 2 months.

Answer: The Clinton economy was based in large part by total fiction. Namely, all those high tech companies that never made a single dime in profits, and often never even got to the stage of creating any discernible product.

Some of these entities were larger than General Motors on paper.

When the bubble burst, we saw the real economy, and that is the dismal state of affairs that Bush inherited.

Regarding the real high tech industry, we can thank Ronald Reagan for that. He gave businesses good incentives to invest in Research and Development. Those tax incentives led directly to companies create new, innovative, high tech products.

Perhaps President Clinton should have had the foresight to inplement an economic stimulus package before he left, but he was more interested in stimulus of a different nature.

B.C, 2009 property assessments are in: How did you do?

The 2009 property assessments — the values on which British Columbians’ 2010 municipal tax bills will be based — are on the web and in the mail. This year — unlike in January of 2009 when the system was turned on its ear by political interference — it’s fairly easy to figure out if you’ll win or lose when your tax bill comes out in July.

MUST see: US to suffer from revolution, food riots, tax rebellions by 2012

Question: I need your comments please ! I have a 8 point programme for a Corruptionless India?

1. Every citizen should be provided with a permanant account number
2. Cash transactions should be discouraged by printing money upto the denomination of Rs.100.00 only
3. All transactions above Rs.1000/- to be made through banks with dr/cr card, funds transfer, chq/dd or online payments.
4. All taxes (IT,ST,cess,ED,service tax etc.,) should be dropped. Only transaction tax of 1% on each bank transaction let it be debit or credit to be levied and automatically transferred to treasury a/c. (I think this will be sufficient to replace all the taxes)
5. Banks should maintain one a/c and give uniform interest.
6. If all taxes are dropped, somuch of paper work and filing of returns, maintainance,inspecting and scrutinising will vanish & the people used for this purpose can be utilised to do for more productivily
7. If cash transactions are discouraged, then corruption,black money etc. will fall to nil.
8. budget only for proper expenditure and need not worry abt income.

Answer: I find yiur thoughts considerably in agreement with mine.As a former Officer in the financial realm, I see some practical problems in implementing your ideas.

Issue of 105 crores PAN cards or Identification numbers is a gigantic task. Take a look at the Electoral Identity Card affair, languishing for the past decade or more.

Dispensing with Cash transactions for values above Rs. 100 will be unviable with a population yet to learn to use an Electronic machine , leave alone ATMs. Rushing through with such a reform at this stage will open opportunities for manipulators to transfer the money of the poor into their Accounts in the guise of helping them as happened in the early days of literacy in our country when poor people’s lands were taken away by using forged documents with genuine thumb impressions.

Tax rate of 1% is okay for all the small and medium earners. But at least five %contribution from the larger players who derive the maximum benefit from the Government system is necessary. The difficulty here with the automatic transfer of the tax money to government treasury is what I have said about poor people’s transactions. Till everybody becomes capable of operating ATM type transaction machines for every transaction, this has to wait. But the Government can print and issue stamps of appropriate value which can be attached to the documents and signed by the recipients. There was such a system of Receipt Tax prevailing in Goa before Income Tax was introduced. in 1964-65/1965-66. It worked well and there were no evasion of tax. Only problem here is the kind of Telgis and their masters.

A system of a single Account for a person is unwieldy for Banks to operate since they have to comply with a large number of regulatory procedures and Accounts of Fixed Deposits and Current Accounts being maintained independently is a must to facilitate compliance.But a statutory requirement to link a person’s each and every Bank Account with his PAN number can and should be made as soon as the Number arrangement is completed.Here it is necessary that Artificial juridical persons such as firms, Companies and Trusts ,etc are to be covered by these arrangements.

There will necessarily be a lot of reduction in paper work, not to talk of reduction in the corruption related to tax assessment cases. But a token force will still have to be maintained in the Audit wing to make sure that the tax is in fact deducted.
Stopping of Cash transactions will not stop the generation of black money by itself. The Valuations declared in every property transaction shall be mandatorily checked by the District Collector/ D.M. and lapses investigated and those who make under valued transaction should be penalised in like manner as done during 1995-97 by taking over the property after giving fifteen percent extra. over the declared value. Cases detected after such scrutiny by the Collectors should be viewed seriously and the Collectors dealt with severely.

Budget for expenditure cannot be done without assessing the Income trends.

Assets to hold on to

Gold made headlines in 2009 as its price continued to set new highs, but the picture for other tangible assets was distinctly mixed. Peter Temple explains why 2010 looks more promising

7/1/09: White House Press Briefing

You know very well the significance of a diamond in a relationship. This beautiful shiny gemstone reflects the purity of your love, the highest stage of your sentiments, a bond that will last for the eternity. Ok now, stop, look, listen! We don’t intend to ruin your happiness, but we’re convinced that your love will shine even more if you learn something about the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme (KPCS).

The KPCS was introduced in 2003 by the United Nations resolution 55/56. The main aim is to certify the origin of diamonds and prevent the latter to be a source of funding for wars and human right abuses.

It was during the cruel conflict in Sierra Leone (1990s) that the so-called ‘blood’ diamonds captured the attention of international media and non-governmental organizations such as Global Witness and Amnesty International. This in turn stimulated the UN debate on the necessity of providing a global framework for the issue. Blood diamonds have to be banned from the legitimate diamond supply chain.

The three-step mechanism is very easy. A country must ensure that any diamond originating in its territory does not fund armies seeking to overthrow a government legitimized by the UN. Second, exports and imports must be accompanied by a KPCS certificate. Finally – and obviously – imports and exports must take place among countries taking part at the Kimberley scheme.

Although the KPCS is an important step to dealing with blood diamonds, but unfortunately the diamond trade is still not subject to mandatory monitoring. Hence, it is not guaranteed that all conflict diamonds can be identified and removed from the market. In fact, KPCS is a scheme based on the so-called soft law. In contrast to hard law, soft laws are only ‘quasi-legal’ instruments that do not present legally binding force. As a result, the KPCS does not legally bind the countries that take part at the agreement. If a country violates the terms, there will not be any legal consequences.

Today there are more than 40 participants in the KPCS. The list includes the main rough diamond producers, exporting and importing countries. Moreover, the World Trade Organization has approved a waiver for the KPCS. Overall, it is important to recognize the evidence that the process has developed a coalition of civil society groups in support of the cause.

Is it enough to convince you of the importance of the KPCS? Do not forget to make sure your diamond will be certificated.

Keeping the taxman at bay

JUDGING by the numbers in the tax authority’s latest annual report (2008-2009), the taxman had indeed been busy auditing and collecting. Across the board, there were increases in the number of cases dealt with and the amounts collected from back taxes and penalties.